Chinese giant Huawei submits proposal for 5G trials in India
In a bid to support 5G roll-out in India, Chinese tech giant Huawei has submitted a proposal to take part in upcoming field trials. The company, which makes telecom gear, submitted the proposal after receiving an invite from Department of Telecommunications (DoT) last week. It is now awaiting the department's approval for the trials, which are set to be conducted in coming months.
The idea behind these trials
Huawei, which is one of the many giants contacted by DoT, will provide backhaul for the development of 5G applications and follow-up trials. It will work with telcos, industry partners, app developers to identify 5G-use cases like enhanced mobile broadband, fixed wireless access, AR/VR, and ultra HD video transfer services. This will ultimately define the 5G ecosystem and the source of monetization for telcos.
Huawei targeting Delhi for trials
According to Jay Chen, the CEO of Huawei India, the company is hoping to conduct trials in Delhi and one more location. He didn't reveal the name of the second place but has stated the company is looking forward to working with the government. Meanwhile, DoT is planning to allocate 100MHz spectrum for the trials and has set up a committee for allotting zones.
Huawei already conducted 5G lab trials
Earlier in February, Huawei partnered with Airtel to conduct lab-based 5G trials in India. In those tests, the company achieved speed more than 3Gbps in the 3.5GHz band.
Spectrum to be allotted next year, roll-out in 2020
While the government has started building the 5G ecosystem, the actual roll-out won't happen before 2020. TRAI will first conduct an auction to provide spectrum for 5G services and only then the countrywide infrastructure will be laid out. As per the current plan, the auction for spectrum allocation will be conducted by mid-2019 at a base price of Rs. 4.9 lakh crore.
